Daily Archives: February 3, 2009

“Hair is a very complicated piece of that model, historically speaking, as brutal a demarcation of worthiness as skin color. Hair texture and skin color work in tandem: The darker you are, the harder you have to offset it with “good” hair in order to be considered attractive or acceptable. If Michelle weren’t dark-skinned with classic black features, she might not be so wedded to super-straight locks. Of course, this is also about class and station — most professional black women of a certain pay scale adopt the relaxed look as part of the overall look of success. And then there’s convenience. A good friend of mine pointed out that processed hair is often more convenient than unprocessed black hair, which requires quite a bit of maintenance and time. But she also agreed that issues like practicality are virtually impossible to separate from the pressure on black women to have relaxed hair in the first place. Which is why I suspect that even a mild curl on Michelle, à la Oprah’s lioness look, would make people nervous. It was no accident that last year’s instantly infamous New Yorker cover that depicted the Obamas as White House terrorists featured Michelle with a huge Afro. Barack’s turban was a bad joke; Michelle’s big hair was a legitimate threat that could materialize at any moment.”

Hey, didn’t Spike Lee already cover this?

Today is Blog Amnesty Day as decreed by Jon Swift and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. I therefore direct your attention to the more obscure blogs linked on the lower right. Give ‘em a look-see.